The Caregiver's CarePort

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the Caregivers CarePort, Dr. Corabell Arps discusses the vital role of beauty in the lives of caregivers. She emphasizes that beauty is not just about aesthetics but is essential for mental and emotional health. The conversation explores how caregiving can limit exposure to beauty and offers practical ways to incorporate beauty into daily routines, even amidst t...

Send us Fan Mail Making decisions as a caregiver can be emotionally challenging, but it is important to navigate them with clarity and compassion. Understanding the situation, including who has the legal authority to make decisions, is crucial. Involving family members and the care recipient in the decision-making process can help create a supportive team. Evaluating the needs of the loved one, un...

Send us Fan Mail Podcast 21 explores the tendency to have negative thoughts and be self-critical, especially in challenging situations like caregiving. It discusses how these negative thoughts are often based on distorted thinking patterns and offers strategies to reframe them. The key themes include the impact of past experiences on our thoughts, the cycle of negative thinking, and the importance...

Send us Fan Mail This episode explores the significant stressors that caregivers experience, including personal grief and loss, dealing with challenging behaviors, feelings of guilt and self-blame, navigating family dynamics, financial consequences, and decision-making. The host emphasizes the importance of compassionate self-awareness and offers strategies for caregivers to improve their well-bei...

Send us Fan Mail Burnout and compassion fatigue are common among caregivers. Burnout is characterized by overwhelming exhaustion, cynicism, and a sense of ineffectiveness. Compassion fatigue is the physical, emotional, and psychological impact of helping others, leading to a diminished ability to empathize. Caregivers can help themselves by being mindful, practicing self-compassion, and prioritizi...

Send us Fan Mail Creating a medication schedule, tracking medication intake, and effective communication are key to managing medications effectively. Tools and resources such as medication apps and pill organizers can simplify the process. It's important to find a format that works for you and involve healthcare providers and loved ones in the process. 

Send us Fan Mail Care and compassion. Those are two hallmarks of the love that family caregivers bestow on their loved one. Who doesn't want to be thought of as loving, caring, and compassionate? And what caregiver doesn't strive for it? Caring for a loved one can be one of the most rewarding yet challenging roles we ever take on. Who shows you love and compassion? Whether or not you hav...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we explore 10 myths and 10 truths about caregiving.

Send us Fan Mail In this Caregivers' Care Port episode, we'll learn about anxiety's emotional and physical symptoms and how they can affect you and the person you care for. We'll explore what puts you at risk, how you can protect yourself and your loved one, and what you can do to get relief if you experience symptoms of anxiety.

Send us Fan Mail Depression is more than just a bout of the blues. It isn’t a weakness or a character flaw. And you can’t simply snap out of it. Depression can happen to anyone. Do you ever notice that the stress and work of caregiving and the changes it brings to your life are affecting your mood and outlook? Do you ever suspect that you are experiencing depression? In this episode we’ll take an...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the Caregiver's CarePort, we'll discuss how you can break through the stigma of asking for help, activate supports and self-care for yourself, and how to significantly improve your quality of life as a caregiver.

Send us Fan Mail Do you love what you're doing? Do you feel like you are just naturally good at it or not? Does it energize you or does it feel like a real chore? Or maybe you're really good at it because you've worked at it and practiced it over enough time that you learned the skills it takes but it wears you out. Is it something you're doing out of love or maybe necessity, b...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr. Corabell Arps speaks about the intricacies of navigating your way through the healthcare systems that you encounter and use. Dealing with the systems that impact your loved one's health care needs can be really stressful. But knowledge and preparation can greatly ease the confusion and uncertainty, reduce your stress, which is good for your health, and he...

Send us Fan Mail How do you make any day a good day? Is it when everything goes like we want it to or we get what we want? Is it a day in which we receive praise or we're told, I love you? Was the weather perfect or was it just that nothing bad happened? And do we consider it to be a good day when we feel more pleasure than pain?

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr. Corabell Arps discusses loneliness and how to deal with it. What is loneliness? Is it just a thought or an emotion? Does it have a purpose? And why is it sometimes so loud and persistent inside of us? Well, loneliness isn't just a fleeting emotion. It cuts deep into the human psyche.

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr. Arps gives tips and discusses how to get the most out of your doctor visits with your loved one. 

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr. Arps speaks with Dr. Tomi Mitchell, a Board Certified physician and Wellness & Performance Coach, about one of the subjects that has been in the news a lot lately: burnout! We talk about what it is, how to recognize it, and what to do about it. 

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, our guest is Helen Sullivan, a wife and mother of three adult daughters and grandmother to many teens and young adult grandchildren. Helen and her husband, Bobby, in addition to being partners in marriage and raising a family, were partners in many business ventures and enjoyed taking risks together and tackling challenges as successful entrepreneurs. Those challe...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr. Corabell Arps dives deeper into the mindset of gratitude and how gratitude impacts our health and quality of life. What is gratitude? Gratitude is acknowledging the goodness in your life and recognizing that that goodness has a source, and at least some of that source lies outside of yourself.

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr. Corabell Arps discusses the importance of a proper mindset when facing challenges. She gives as an example her experience walking the Camino de Santiago through Spain.

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we have as a guest Bill Cohen. Bill is a caregiving support consultant, a certified senior advisor, and a trained elder mediator. And he owns Cohen Caregiving Support Consultants, LLC. Bill was the caregiver for his mother who had Alzheimer's, and he's now a tireless champion for caregivers. He came out of retirement and has dedicated his encore career t...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to the Caregiver’s CarePort! Dr. Corabell Arps is a Board certified health and wellness coach specializing in working with caregivers. In her career as a psychiatrist, she has heard from many devoted caregivers that they used to believe that their responsibilities were too great for them to focus on their own self-care. They felt that if they took time of ot meet their own...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr. Corabell Arps speaks with caregiver Dayna Steele who navigated her way through the challenges of caring for her mother by using her grit and her strengths of communication and connection. Since her mother's passing, she's using her voice to educate, support, and encourage others who care for loved ones with Alzheimer's.  So settle in and hear fr...